Attachments: Why You Love, Feel, and Act the Way You Do

Rating:
Summary: Underlying problems made understandable
Review: As a therapist I run into people with attachment problems all the time. This book can help professionals and other interested people learn how and why the feel, or don't feel, as they do. Dr. Clinton is an excellent writer and makes the subject interesting and useful for both professionals and non-professionals alike. An excellent and not difficult read.

Rating:
Summary: The Ultimate Relationship Manuals
Review: My fiancee and I have read a lot of books about relationships. Most of them cover the same old stuff--mostly superficial and entertaining at best. This book is unlike any other. We've really discovered both how and why we relate the way we do. This book is a journey into your heart and soul. It brings spirituality alive, showing how God is the 'ultimate attachment figure.' It's important to note that even though Christian spirituality is a central theme in this book, its coverage of attachment and its analysis of how we learn to love, stands alone. You can get a wealth of powerful information from this book even if you aren't religious. The book covers the different styles of attachment and how they affect the way you love others. These styles begin in early childhood and influence us throughout life. The authors highlight a crucial point: How we handle our feelings mirrors how we handle our reltionships. If you keep your feelings at a distance, you probably do the same with close relationships. If your feelings are chaotic, most likely, your relationships are too. The chapters on understand and healing emotional storms and on healing wounded attachment bonds have literally transformed the way I relate to those I love the most. This is a must read book for those serious about love and relationships.

Rating:
Summary: New deck chairs on the Titanic.....
Review: This book admirably summarizes the concept of attachment in humans giving good examples of healthy social and psychological development in those raised with love and understanding, as well as illuminating the pathology that results from neglectful, repressive, or violent upbringings. Throughout the text, proper referencing is given to those (Bowlby, Ainsworth, Main and others) who founded and helped validate attachment principles with scientific data. Cases presented from the authors own counseling experience concur with attachment principles with regard to the root causes of the anxiety in the patient and the means by which some level of healing is achieved. All this is done while still being accessible to the average reader. In this regard alone, the book may merit a 5 star rating.

The fact that I question whether full healing can be achieved by the authors' recommendations is why I rate the book overall a 3 star effort. My reading of their premise is that "God" of the Judeo-Christian tradition can be experienced as the ultimate attachment figure and that this can heal the ingrained, unhealthy relationship behaviors resulting from poor parenting. The idea here is that in order, as adults, to take the jump to total honesty in our lives, we should trust in "God" as our secure base, much as a child can trust a sensitive, attuned, and caring parent. In this regard, the book's proposal is much like that of the 12-Step programs for addicts that seek to provide a welcoming, understanding group dynamic where admission of powerlessness to the addiction and trust in the "Higher Power" are central to the healing process.

My concerns about the recommendations made in "Attachments" are manifold, but chiefly are the following. First, no alternatives are made for a secure base in adulthood to that of the Judeo-Christian "God". Since a reading of the Old Testament suggests that this "God" was jealous, wrathful, and prone to infantile tantrums, one wonders to what extent this body of teachings can serve as a source of information for this "secure base". (I would predict that Yahweh would fail to score as "secure" in the Adult Attachment Interview, a standard test for measuring attachment in adults.) Secondly, to what extent is this "adult human-God" approximation of infant-adult attachment a reversion to infantile ways in the adult? What is the vision of psychological, emotional, and moral maturity in this model? Thirdly, the book takes evasive turns in some areas, not taking a stand on whether spanking is good/bad for children, side-stepping at what point adults should begin to take action against a draconian "work culture" such as ours in efforts to be more available to their children, and ducking altogether the issue of sex in the chapter entitled "Love, Sex, and Marriage".

Finally, although I respect and adhere to attachment theory as proffered by Bowlby and others, and although Bowlby grounded his hypothesis in evolutionary theory, only Ainsworth and select anthropologists and ethologists looked outside of our culture for validations of the attachment paradigm, and indeed found such evidence. Compared with the Judeo-Christian tradition focused on in "Attachments", cultures that are or were more earth-worshipping, versus "sky-God" worshipping, were exquisitely attuned to their children, offering mother, the extended family of tribe, the benevolent and fruitful earth, and finally the universe, as ever-expanding attachment figures. Although the end result of the approaches outlined in "Attachments" may lead to a healthier society, I get the vague feeling from the book that as long as individuals find peace, attached to their "God", without challenging the current "sick society" (as alluded to by Freud, Fromm, and a host of modern philosophers), then success has been achieved. So we can keep living in ever-more concentrated cities, blanket rural areas with crops and livestock from horizon to horizon, lovingly "encourage" our children in their team sports, music/drama, and the inevitable pursuit of their "career", rally against abortion but for fertility enhancements, and convince ourselves that we don't really need the natural world, because we are ensconced in "God" and he will always be there for us. This clearly describes a world out of balance.

If the focus on "God" in this book brings more people to understand and implement the principles of attachment theory, then I have to feel that some progress has been made. Ultimately, I would encourage the reading of "Attachments", but for counterpoint would recommend Calvin Luther Martin's "In the Spirit of the Earth: Rethinking History and Time" and Paul Shepard's "Nature and Madness". The authors of "Attachments" have pointed well to the excellent references of Bowlby and Ainsworth that illustrate the origins of attachment theory and to Robert Karen's summary thereof. (It has been proposed that the germination of attachment theory was the most important and radical development in 20th century psychology......Let's hope it doesn't take until the end of the 21st for it to bear fruit.) For the further curious reader, Jean Liedloff's "The Continuum Concept: In Search of Happiness Lost" and Derrick Jensen's "A Language Older Than Words" are non-scientific observations on other cultures and the natural world as attachment paradigms.


Rating:
Summary: Why you do what you do!
Review: This book is dead on! You will find yourself and others you love in the pages of this book. You will discover why you relate to people the way you do and how to change those patterns.

Rating:
Summary: Why you do what you do!
Review: This book is dead on! You will find yourself and others you love in the pages of this book. You will discover why you relate to people the way you do and how to change those patterns.

Rating:
Summary: Good summarization of attachment problems
Review: This book is well written. It is an excellent summarization of prior attachment work (Bowlby, etc.). In addition, this book offers some pretty practical strategies for attending to your particular attachment style. This is a useful tool for anyone (counseling professionals and not)...especially for those who are interested in enhancing their personal relationships.

Rating:
Summary: Good summarization of attachment problems
Review: This book is well written. It is an excellent summarization of prior attachment work (Bowlby, etc.). In addition, this book offers some pretty practical strategies for attending to your particular attachment style. This is a useful tool for anyone (counseling professionals and not)...especially for those who are interested in enhancing their personal relationships.

Rating:
Summary: childhood "ouchies" become grown-up problems
Review: You learned about love when you were a baby. The bad news is that you probably learned some painful lessons. The good news is, there is hope for you to learn something closer to the truth.

Attachment research (summarized in this book) shows that babies' interactions with their mothers (and fathers, although more research is needed in this area) during infancy teach them that either they are worthy of love and will receive it... or they're not and they won't. This simple lesson impacts the rest of these babies' lives in a million subtle ways they probably do not even realize.

If you see self-defeating patterns (for example, self-bashing, other-bashing, caring remarks replaced by aggressive ones) in your love-seeking or someone else's love-seeking, but you have no idea why, this book may explain to you the old scripts that you're reading from. It will give you answers for the problems, too.

The second half of the book talks about how to cultivate a relationship with God that can teach you how to love and be loved without all the childhood baggage. The path for healing takes time but IS possible.

I needed to hear that message. How about you?